Before you get the chance
by Forwantofabettername
Summary: Two people never left the house that day. Two people never survived the mirrors


Scarlet was really unsure of this at most. The seven of them all had to do a project together, but why did she have to go with all of these losers anyway? Somehow her drama teacher had decided that they would make a good group. Yeah right.

Scarlet wasn't even close to being popular. She was goth, listened to eclectic music, never in all her years been 'cool'. She was aloof. And so there she was, Shayne Scarlet (everyone called her Scarlet-and she preferred it that way,) dressed in a over-sized blood red shirt, leather pants, boots and gloves, her leather jacket slung over one shoulder, and smelling of a mix between exhaust and motor oil, lounging around with five others she would never in all her days associate with, in a white marble foyer of a rich person's house. Or rather, a rich Boddy's house.  
>And there was not a single Boddy home.<p>

White. Charlotte White always loved the colour white, it was fresh and cleansing to the soul. She was wearing white stretch flare pants, and a loose white shirt, her usual attire. She was at home in the rich white foyer, that was not dissimilar to her own.

She hummed a small ditty, her head in the clouds and her thoughts on their drama piece. It was an extract from one of her favorite plays, and very deep and thought provoking scene indeed. Charlotte did love drama, even though her co-stars this time were a bunch of unruly brats. Honestly, the one she stood in front of at the moment was a horrible girl, Scarlet was her name. She was a scholar student, and hated most of the school's other students, with an except few. The girl apparently was raised in Chiswick- and had the accent to prove it- but she moved to Hackney and had lived there ever since. Apparently.

Plum's racing thoughts were interrupted by the White girl humming. Stupid idiot. He hated drama, and saw it as a useless subject, but his teacher had warned him it was important for him to score well on this assessment or his report would suffer badly. That just wouldn't do, he needed to get into Oxford, or he would die!

So he, and the rest of this stupid group were stuck here, waiting for Boddy to come home, so they could practice. He resented the fact that he had to do this useless activity when he could be doing something way more productive. Victor Edward Plum, was not doing anything productive. At that thought, he pulled out a book and started reading.

There was nothing going on in Mustard's head. Nothing. Well, that was a lie. He was thinking about the hot girls in the room at the moment, and what the lineup for the next big rugby game should be, but other than that, nothing. His blank mind vaguely registered the wailing sounds of the wind outside. Despite being England, it was not raining for once, although it's not like he would care, really. The day had been fairly cool, nothing out of the ordinary, and he had just scraped by on his meager grades. All, in all, other than the weather, which his thick brain had not registered, his day had been unremarkable. Completely and utterly unremarkable.

Peacock, as she was nick-named by her friends, was formally known as Cyanea Blau, was a blue-eyed, blonde haired popular beauty. She carried herself with aplomb, and was known for being both pretty and smart. She was your average popular cheerleader type, top of the food chain. So you could just imagine her disgust on learning that she had to go and practice this stupid drama piece or else sh would fail. Boddy, her long-time boyfriend had invited the others who were also in their group over to his house. The majority of them weren't popular at all! Peacock was vain, and strongly disliked the Scarlet and White girl, as the White girl was a stuck-up snob, and the Scarlet girl was a bad, drunken influence. She sighed again, her blue fingernail tapping against the glass side-table.

Lu's lithe fingers ran across the keyboard, the black and white keys barely making a sound. Had he been properly playing, the room's other occupants would have heard the beautiful melodies sound from the white semi-grand, but he did not feel like braking the silence. The silence shall not fall tonight, he thought to himself. Lu, his surname, or green as it was known in English, was the marker of his Chinese heritage, although he himself had been brought up in England, he still spoke Cantonese and Mandarin at home. Jonathon Lu was raised in your typical Chinese family, with a tiger mum and all. He was taught violin and piano from since he could read, and spoke four different languages fluently. Even so, his interests still veered towards computing, especially programming and design. He still enjoyed playing the violin and the piano in his spare time, though.

Then the lights flickered, and died. Lu was so surprised he accidentally slammed his hands onto the keyboard, a grating chord breaking the silence. The front door opened, revealing some grey light, and a silhouette appeared. White shrieked, and took a few steps back, knocking Plum onto the floor.

"Hey, who's there?" Scarlet shouted, and the figure in the door fell with a thud onto the shiny marble floor. The thud echoed through the foyer, as the lights flickered back on.

Scarlet was the first one on the scene, having been used to seeing bodies in her part of town. She recognised it as Boddy, their host, and she put a finger on his neck. No pulse. She flipped the body over, and the stab wound gaped a hole in his chest. The blood was seeping out onto his clothes, and she threw up a little in the back of her throat. Scarlet dragged the dead body inside a little, and closed the mansion's door. She faced the rest of the small group, and called out.  
>"No pulse. He's dead," her eyes hardened as she face the others. Her gaze roamed around the room, and blocked out the sounds of White and Blau screeching, "There's something... off."<p>

Lu caught her drift, and so did Plum. Their heads whipped around, searching for the thing that was different.

"The mirrors," They both whispered hoarsely, their throats suddenly dry. To the right and left of Scarlet there were two big mirrors hanging on the walls, facing each other. Usually, mirrors in that position would keep reflecting off each other more times than you could count, but in this case, each mirror was reflecting the wall as if the other wasn't... there.

Scarlet looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her reflection wasn't the same as before, her hair was out of it's ponytail, and the red streaks were gone. It cascaded down her back, down her scarlet red cocktail dress. The her hands were still clad in her fingerless studded leather gloves, but she was holding a big knife, covered in scarlet blood. Her make-up covered face, looked at her in the mirror. The scarlet lips of the girl in the mirror smirked at her, before the hand that wasn't holding the knife lifted up a placard, that read 'Scarlet in the hall with the knife?'. Scarlet looked on in horror, and a piece of hair fell in her face. She looked down to see she was wearing the same as in the woman in the mirror, the knife and placard at her feet.

Scarlet turned to face the others, her mouth trying to form the words.  
>"Why don't we move out of the hall? To the kitchen, maybe?" Mustard suggested. There was no arguments, they were all so shell-shocked.<p>

The doors to the kitchen opened gently, an the entrants, led by Peacock and White stopped. Hanging by a rope from middle of the room was Boddy, white as a sheet, just like White liked her colour. In his hands was a placard reading 'White in the kitchen with the rope?'. White's clothing changed to a short white sixties A-line dress, and knee-high white go-go boots. In one hand she gripped a rope noose tightly, her knuckles turning white as her dress.

White stayed there, frozen, as the rest of the group turned back to the dining room, prepared to go back to the foyer, when Peacock shrieked. White turned around, and saw what the others saw too. Plum was gripping a blood-covered lead pipe, his clothes had changed to a plum overcoat, a purple waistcoat, tie and slacks, over a lavender shirt. White looked back at the kitchen, only to see Boddy's body gone, only the noose hanging from the ceiling and the placard on the sterile floor.

Scarlet knew what to expect from the placard that the dead Boddy held. It was slumped in a purple velvet Edwardian-style chair. 'Plum in the dining room with the pipe?'.

"What the hell is going on here?" Scarlet demanded. She slammed her fist on the table, and all the cutlery clinked together.

Scarlet ran back to the foyer, and the rest of the group followed her. She tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. So she looked for the windows to get out.

"Where are the windows?" she almost yelled.  
>"In the dining room," Peacock answered.<br>"There are no windows in the dining room," Lu noted, then he realised what was wrong and cursed in Cantonese, "The mirrors. It's the mirrors," On hearing this, Scarlet punched the mirrors in the foyer. Despite her immense strength and her studded gloves, the mirrors did not shatter like they should have. Her reflection rippled, and bright red writing appeared on the mirror. It was her handwriting, down to the letter. The way she dotted her i's to the way her g's curved, it was exactly hers.

_To break these is to break all the others first. To break these is to find the true culprit. _

"What the hell?" Scarlet turned around to look for the others. Mustard was gone. She ran out, looking for him, calling his name. They had to stick together. The others followed her, also screaming out for him. Peacock opened the door to the Billiards room and screamed.

There was a pool of blood collecting on the floor. There was a revolver on the floor by the door, and she stepped over it into the room. The others came into the room too, investigating the scream. There was Boddy's body, shot in the head, as well as the usual placard. And Mustard's dead body lay beside him. He was also shot in the head.

"My god..." Plum breathed. Mustard's new clothes were soaked with both his and Boddy's blood. The dead pair lay on the floor, and Lu let loose a string of curses in Chinese. Scarlet let loose a string of curses that would make any sailor proud, and sounded somewhat out of place with her refined appearance. Both Peacock and White visibly cringed at the sound, and Scarlet rolled her eyes.

"It's you or Lu, left," White whispered to Peacock.  
>"I know."<br>"Are you scared?"  
>"Very, very scared. But we all are, aren't we?"<br>"Yeah. I know I am,"  
>"This is insane."<br>"Insanely whacked out."  
>"I swear I will kill the little twat who did this!" Scarlet yelled.<p>

Peacock was the first to leave the room, and they all filed out after her. She wanted to go to the study, to see if the computer was working. But the dead body that greeted them was not what they wanted to find.

It was Peacock's turn, now. She had changed to her hair in a tight bun, and a blue pillbox hat with a peacock feather, as well as blue skirt suit. She was clutching a monkey wrench, and the placard by her feet read what she was expecting. Scarlet picked the placard up, and read the back. She dropped it, and she then ran out. The others followed. She opened the door to the cellar, and blacked out.

They escaped, eventually. The five of them destroyed the mirrors, and got out. But the murder of Scarlet was the worst. She died in front of their eyes, that day.

The last, forgotten placard read, 'Green in the cellar with the candlestick?'. The mirror killed Scarlet. And Scarlet knew exactly who was behind the murders, and she died with the words on her lips. The last, forgotten name. The one member of their drama group that was sick that day.


End file.
